Suchergebnisse

The present paper uses a comparison of Japan and the US to argue that the debate about corporate governance reform is best framed in terms of systems of complementary instruments and institutions. It argues that the Japanese and US systems of corporate governance differ along many dimensions, yet can both be understood as efficient combinations of complementary instruments adapted to a particular institutional and regulatory environment. The paper also shows how exogenous shocks and piecemeal regulatory reforms have undermined the internal consistency of the Japanese system in the recent past.

The debate on the privatization of enterprises in Eastern Europe often presumes that enterprises are still controlled by an identifiable entity called "the state". This, however, is no longer the case. Since the demise of tight central planning, the nominally state-owned enterprises are de facto steered by insiders such as incumbent managers, workers, and local administrators. As the customary property rights of insiders are not legally acknowledged and are thus not secure, insiders tend to adopt a myopic attitude, and neglect the long-run profitability of their firms. Centrally organized privatization programs to disburse ownership rights to non-insiders are usually advocated as the best way to improve the efficiency of the firms. However, such privatization programs challenge the present position of managers, workers, and local bureaucrats. The insiders therefore tend to resist the privatization programs. If the central government cannot quickly decide the ensuing power struggle in its favor, the establishment of secure and tradable private property rights is delayed and the performance of the enterprises may deteriorate even further in the meantime. The extent to which a central government needs to take the customary property rights of insiders into account in the design and implementation of its privatization policy depends on its political power. Whereas the government in former Czechoslovakia had been able to largely disregard the claims of insiders, governments such as the Polish one have been far less successful. The evidence supports the conclusion that a weak central state is ill posed to rapidly and successfully implement privatization strategies that disregard the customary rights of insiders. In Russia and most other successor states of the Soviet Union, the central authorities are in an extremely weak position relative to enterprises and local administrations. In order to privatize quickly, Russia should largely respect and formalize the customary property rights of insiders and make these rights tradable. Although Russia's present privatization approach grants managers, workers, and local bureaucrats more say in the privatization process than the respective programs in Eastern Central Europe, Russia would be well advised to enhance the preferential conditions for insiders even further and to scale down the scope of its voucher program. The criticisms voiced against insider privatization are not convincing. They either refer to general problems of the transformation process that no privatization method could avoid, or the criticisms refer to problems that only arise if insider privatization is deemed illegal by official policies that do not take customary property rights into account and that do not make the property rights openly tradable.

Russia's foreign debt problems worsened substantially after the financial crisis of 1998. The paper focuses on the key role of the government in servicing foreign debt and promoting institution building by showing how foreign debt influences the choice between official and unofficial taxation. The enterprise sector is assumed to reallocate its resources between domestic investment and capital flight. It is discussed under which conditions debt rescheduling may create incentives for the government to promote institution building. The results of this paper shed light on the conditions under which the recent agreement with the London Club to write off substantial amounts of former Soviet debt can be successful.

Since August 1998, Russia has been suffering from a severe banking crisis. In finding a solution, two peculiarities of the Russian economy need to be taken into account: the substantial foreign liabilities of commercial banks and the failure of the government to service its liabilities. Apart from the externality problem of bank recapitalization, the paper discusses how to deal with the adverse selection and moral hazard problems resulting from asymmetries of information. We suggest that banks should be offered to their foreign creditors for recapitalization and that banks which cannot attract additional funds should be closed. The government should support the recapitalization process by taking over control from the banks' old shareholders. This would facilitate the transfer of control to foreign creditors. It would also serve to limit asset stripping and thereby to reduce externalities distorting the recapitalization process. Distortions could be mitigated further by bailing in investors not participating in the recapitalization.

Die Währungskrise, die in den letzten Monaten Asien erschütterte, zeigte einmal mehr, wie riskant es sein kann, aufstrebende Marktwirtschaften in den internationalen Markt mit einzubeziehen. Der vorliegende Diskussionsbeitrag befaßt sich mit der Frage, ob es sinnvoll wäre, den Kapitalzufluß in Transformationsländer durch Steuern zu regeln. Anhand von Grafiken und Tabellen werden die Entwicklung und der Verlauf von Finanzströmen verdeutlicht.

Lit.

Since August 1998, Russia has been suffering from a severe banking crisis. In finding a solution, two peculiarities of the Russian economy need to be taken into account: the substantial foreign liabilities of commercial banks and the failure of the government to service its liabilities. Apart from the externality problem of bank recapitalization, the paper discusses how to deal with the adverse selection and moral hazard problems resulting from asymmetries of information. We suggest that banks should be offered to their foreign creditors for recapitalization and that banks which cannot attract additional funds should be closed. The government should support the recapitalization process by taking over control from the banks' old shareholders. This would facilitate the transfer of control to foreign creditors. It would also serve to limit asset stripping and thereby to reduce externalities distorting the recapitalization process. Distortions could be mitigated further by bailing in investors not participating in the recapitalization.

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical evidence on capital account convertibility and assesses its relevance for the reform states of Central and Eastern Europe. Its major findings are that domestic investment conditions matter and that domestic policies can reduce the risk of an abrupt reversal of capital flows. Policymakers must stand ready to adjust the exchange rate but also their fiscal and monetary policies once signs of overheating appear. The effectiveness of controls on capital flows is highly questionable. Moreover, capital controls raise the irreversibility of investment projects and may cause the postponement of investment decisions. The countries under review have made substantial progress towards capital account convertibility and should continue on this track as they strive for membership in the EU.

After years of high growth, low unemployment and low inflation, the Czech economy has suffered a sudden setback. Speculative attacks on the currency have forced the Central Bank to abandon its fixed exchange rate. The government has now announced austerity measures to reduce the massive current account deficit. In the short run, these measures will lead to lower growth and higher unemployment. Moreover, the devaluation of the Czech Koruna will make it more difficult to further reduce inflation. The crisis is due in part to the previous boom in domestic absorption. The expansion of absorption has been fuelled by massive capital inflows which helped to maintain the fixed exchange rate. At the same time, productivity growth has been sluggish despite high investment-to-GDP ratios, and wages have increased substantially despite sluggish productivity growth. These developments have contributed to the overvaluation of the exchange rate. As a result, the competitiveness of the tradables sector has been weakened, and the current account deficit has widened dramatically. The policy measures now announced aim at reducing domestic demand by cutting fiscal expenditure, raising taxes, devaluing the currency, and containing wage growth in the public sector. However, the government has so far failed to address the microeconomic issues that are at the heart of these supply-side problems. These include inefficiencies in financial intermediation, ineffective bankruptcy procedures, and weaknesses in the corporate governance of enterprises resulting from mass privatization. Solutions to the problems in the banking and financial sector should comprise tax incentives for banks to provision for loan losses, decentralized debt restructuring, the streamlining of bankruptcy proceedings, upgrading of the court system's resources, and a greater political will to enforce the existing bankruptcy legislation. Opening up for foreign banks more decisively and in particular allowing foreign banks to participate in the privatization of the large commercial banks can help to improve the efficiency of the banking system and the corporate governance role of banks. In order to encourage funds to manage their portfolios for the benefit of investors, funds should be encouraged to register as open-end unit trusts rather than as joint stock companies. On the macroeconomic level, the government is moving in the right direction. As regards the medium term outlook, fundamentals of the Czech economy remain strong. However, decisive and timely action to improve the institutional framework is needed if the economy is to overcome the present crisis and to reach a new, sustainable growth path.

Freier internationaler Kapitalverkehr kann eine Reihe von positiven Effekten auf die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung haben. Kapital wird in die produktivsten Investitionsprojekte gelenkt, Investitionsrisiken werden gestreut, neue Technologien verbreitet, und effiziente Finanzsysteme können sich entwickeln. Dies macht eine Integration in die internationalen Kapitalmärkte attraktiv – nicht zuletzt auch für Länder in einem relativ frühen Entwicklungsstadium. Allerdings stehen diesen Vorteilen auch Risiken gegenüber. Eine Öffnung für internationales Kapital kann dazu führen, Zahlungsbilanz- und Währungskrisen über den internationalen Kapitalverkehr auf eigentlich unbeteiligte Drittländer zu übertragen. Zudem kann eine vergleichsweise schnelle Anpassung der Finanzmärkte zu einer Fehlleitung von realwirtschaftlichen Ressourcen führen. Häufig wird daher eine stärkere Besteuerung kurzfristiger Kapitalströme als Abwehrmaßnahme gegen diese Risiken gefordert. Vielfach beruft man sich dabei auf einen Vorschlag von James Tobin, der in den siebziger Jahren dafür plädiert hatte, durch eine Steuer auf Devisenmarkttransaktionen "Sand in das Getriebe der internationalen Geldmärkte zu streuen". Allerdings ergeben empirische Untersuchungen kein klares Bild darüber, wie sich Steuern auf internationale Kapitalströme auswirken und ob sie nicht sogar unerwünschte Nebenwirkungen entfalten können. Grundsätzlich können durch diese Steuern spekulative Angriffe auf überbewertete Währungen nicht verhindert, sondern bestenfalls aufgeschoben werden. Zudem ist es angesichts der technologischen Entwicklung auf den internationalen Kapitalmärkten relativ einfach, einer solchen Steuer auszuweichen. Inwieweit die Vorteile des freien Kapitalverkehrs tatsächlich genutzt und die Gefahren eingegrenzt werden können, hängt in entscheidendem Maße von der inländischen Wirtschaftspolitik ab. Kernelemente einer erfolgreichen Integrationsstrategie sollten strukturelle Reformen sein, die auf makroökonomischer Ebene überbewertete Währungen und zu hohe Außenhandelsdefizite vermeiden helfen. Im mikroökonomischen Bereich sollten die Anreize so gesetzt werden, dass eine hohe Verschuldung in ausländischer Währung vermieden wird. In vielen sich entwickelnden Volkswirtschaften müssen hierzu das Bankensystem und die Bankenaufsicht reformiert werden. Zudem sollte eine klare und transparente Informationspolitik gegenüber den Märkten betrieben werden.

The integration of the central and eastern European countries into the international capital markets has been and will be determined by the process of European Union (EU) integration. Our analysis shows that southern and eastern European countries already appear to be surprisingly similar regarding FDI flows from EU members. The central and eastern European countries, however, are likely to attract increased portfolio flows in the years to come. We argue that membership alone in a regional arrangement like the EU is neither sufficient for sustained capital inflows nor is it the guarantee for increased investment activities. Rather, domestic economic policy has to change in accordance: Liberalization matters, not only membership.

Capital flight has characterized the transformation process in Russia. Inflows of foreign direct investment have been minor and have been preceeded by inflows of portfolio capital. The paper shows that uncertainty about macroeconomic stabilization exhibits a strong negative effect on the volume of capital inflows when investment decisions are irreversible. Reducing uncertainty may but must not necessarily lead to more investment. The fact that monetary stabilization policies have not been accompanied by comprehensive institutional reforms can explain the pattern of Russia's capital flows in general and the dismal performance in attracting foreign direct investment in particular.